Music Video: Postmodernism in music video

 Postmodernism in music video: Blog tasks

Media Magazine Theory Drop - Postmodernism

Create a new blog post called 'Postmodernism in music video: blog tasks'. Read ‘The Theory Drop: Postmodernism’ in MM66  (p26). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions:

1) How does the article define postmodernism in the first page of the article?

‘postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all established philosophies and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in’.

2) What did media theorist and Semiotician Roland Barthes suggest in his essay 'The Death of the Author'?

the experiences and biases of the author serve as a definitive "explanation" of the text.

3) What is metatextuality?

Metatextuality is where a text draws attention to the fact that it is a text. It points to the process of its own creation.

4) What is the repeated phrase on the cartoon on postmodernism on page 28?

‘postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all established philosophies and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in’.

5) How does postmodernism link to media representations and reality?

It challenges the idea of objective truth and emphasises the constructed nature of knowledge and reality and the fact that media representations become more real than reality itself.

Music video CSPs and postmodernism

Now apply postmodern ideas to our music video CSPs by answering the following questions:

1) How does the music video for Ghost Town incorporate elements of postmodernism?

Ghost town uses intertextuality through the use of German expressionism. This can be seen through the depiction of reality that is distorted- the "ghost town" 

2) What film genres are alluded to in the music video for Ghost Town? Which scenes in particular created these links?

ska 

thriller

two tone

3) How does Old Town Road use postmodern elements in its music video?

Intertextual references in the lyrics to some parts of rap culture.

Intertextuality to the yeehaw agenda.

4) How does the Old Town Road music video reflect technological convergence and modern digital culture?

In the music video, you see people taking their phones out and recording the black cowboy moving through the city.  

5) What do YOU think Lil Nas X was trying to say about reality and American culture in the music video for Old Town Road?

I think  deliberately highlights the gap and disparity between Black and white people in the US. This is shown through the white man and his daughter feeling threatened and pointing his rifle at Lil Nas X's character, this could be emblematic of white supremacy and  extreme racism that is still prevalent in the US even today. However, at the end of the music video Lil Nas X  hugs a white women, voicing to the audience that cultural conviviality is possible in the US. This could also be seen through the very genre of the song which is a hybrid of rap and country.

A/A* extension reading: Medium article

Read this Medium article on the Postmodern Pop Artist. Do any of the ideas in this article apply to Old Town Road or Ghost Town? How? 

 

"postmodernism is an attractive philosophical standpoint for a new generation of intellectuals who do not exist within the category of the traditional ivory-tower critics (McRobbie 1994). Becoming anthems and texts that promote conversations about current issues, music has immense potentiality for social change."

From this, you could say that "old town road" promotes conversations based around race in modern day America.